


Bad Days

by exclamation



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Depressed Derek, Depressed Stiles, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:57:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3874780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exclamation/pseuds/exclamation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles normally gets through the bad days by faking a smile. Today though, he can't take it anymore. He needs to vent and it's easier to talk to someone who doesn't care. </p><p>To his astonishment, Derek doesn't just care. Derek understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Days

“I can cope with the bad days when there’s a reason for them,” Stiles said, fiddling with the cord dangling from the hood of his hoodie. “Like, when it’s the anniversary of my mom’s death, or when I’ve got a bad grade in school or something, there’s something solid and I can pin the bad feelings to, a point in time that I know will pass. I just get on with things, push through, fake it.” 

Derek was moving around his cupboards in the corner of the loft. He wasn’t looking at Stiles. He didn’t give any indication that he was even listening. Somehow that made it easier. Stiles could say this stuff out loud because it didn’t matter, because no one would really hear. No one who cared. 

“But sometimes, there’s no reason. The feelings just hit me like a punch in the gut. There’s nothing concrete that I can point to as a cause. Sometimes it’s just a day and that’s OK but sometimes it’s not. And then, there’s no point in time that the feelings wrap around, so there’s a part of me that thinks, ‘What if this is it? What if this time, the bad day last forever?’” 

Derek had crossed the room and Stiles hadn’t even noticed, not until Derek set a mug down on the table in front of the couch. From the trailing string, there was a tea bag in it. It seemed odd that Derek would give him tea not coffee. Maybe he thought it was more soothing. 

Derek still hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t even asked if Stiles wanted a drink. 

Stiles picked up the mug, feeling the warmth against his fingers. Derek sat down at a straight-backed chair, away from the couch. Stiles wondered what Derek was thinking. If he thought Stiles was pathetic for moaning over nothing. Literally being upset because he had nothing to be upset about. Stiles stared at the mug in his hands. It was easier to talk if he wasn’t looking at Derek. 

“She said I was in a good mood,” Stiles said. 

“Who?” Derek asked. It was the first thing he’d said since, “So you’re coming in then,” when Stiles had barged his way into the loft. 

“Malia. I was, you know, doing my thing, faking a smile, and she asked me how I was. Not even a real question, just a, ‘hi, how’s it going?’ type thing. And I froze, because I wasn’t sure how to answer it, but I’d frozen with my trying-to-get-through- the-day smile on and she said that I looked like I was in a good mood.” 

Stiles started a frustrated gesture and nearly ended up splashing tea over his hands. He set the mug down. 

“I know it’s stupid,” he said, “because I was trying to hide it. I shouldn’t be mad at her for not noticing I’m upset when I’m trying to hide that I’m upset but...” He made a frustrated noise because there were no words he could say that would make this make sense, simply because it didn’t make sense. It couldn’t. 

He waited for Derek to tell him he was being an idiot, that it was stupid to be upset with Malia because he was the one who’d been faking a smile. He couldn’t blame her that it had worked. He flopped back against the cushions of the couch. 

“You could have told her you were having a bad day,” Derek said. 

“I couldn’t,” Stiles said. 

There was a silence. Stiles wanted to fill the void with noise, but he couldn’t think of something to say. He’d already talked Derek’s ear off and Derek clearly wasn’t interested. He’d probably given Stiles the tea in the hope that it would get Stiles to stop talking. 

Stiles was just thinking that he should just drink some of the tea for politeness’ sake and then extract himself before imposing further on Derek, when Derek spoke. 

“After your mom died,” Derek said, “I gather your dad went through a tough time.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles said. He wasn’t sure why this had gone from talking about him having a bad day to talking about his dad, but Derek just nodded. 

“He probably had a lot on his mind with work and grief and dealing with all the things like insurance and funerals and everything,” Derek continued. 

“Yeah.” 

“And he probably had to deal with looking after you more, school stuff, babysitters, all that.” 

“Is there a point here?” Stiles asked. 

“You didn’t want to be a burden to him, any more than you already were,” Derek said. He said it like a statement not a question. 

“Of course I didn’t,” Stiles said. Derek nodded again. 

“So you started hiding it when you felt bad, because you didn’t want your dad to be upset.” 

Stiles narrowed his eyes at Derek, “Is mind-reading a werewolf thing now?” 

Derek’s lips switched in a small, sad smile. 

“Laura was eighteen when the fire happened. Eighteen and trying to raise a younger brother and get a job, because we didn’t know about the cash stash in the vault at the time, and deal with her own grief. You think you’re the only one who ever thought it was better to hide?” 

Stiles just sat there and stared at Derek. He’d been talking, assuming Derek didn’t care but just needing to vent anyway, and Derek had listened. Not only that, he’d understood. He’d understood because he’d felt the same. 

Stiles let out a slow breath, hearing the tremor in it. 

“Holy crap,” he said softly. 

He sat there on the couch. After a minute, he reached out and picked up the tea again, feeling the warmth of the mug like a hug within his fingers. 

When Derek stood, Stiles assumed that the moment was over. Derek fetched a laptop from some dark corner of the loft. Presumably their instant of connection was past and now Derek was bored, just waiting for Stiles to go. Once again, Stiles was being a burden. He sipped his tea, trying to get this over with. 

But Derek walked over to the couch with the laptop, holding it out. Stiles set down the mug so he could take the computer, seeing an internet browser opened to what appeared to be a blog post. 

“Read it,” Derek said. “Then read the comments.” 

“Reading comments on an internet article is always a dangerous business.” 

“Just read them. Then read some of the other posts on the blog because they’re pretty funny. Stuff about zombies and weird stuff and... you’ll like them.” 

Stiles decided not to be offended that Derek had just implied he was weird. He just started reading, while Derek let himself out of the loft. 

Stiles read the blog post. It was like a coming out post, except that the writer was coming out about suffering depression. The post was even titled ‘coming out’. It wasn’t the post that got to him though. It was the comments beneath. They seemed to go on forever. Voices speaking with sympathy and kindness and other voices, way too many voices, that understood. That felt the same. 

Somewhere down the thread of comments, between the person describing their experiences with PTSD, the girl saying she was going to seek treatment for depression, and the person with bipolar disorder offering thanks for speaking out, Stiles started crying. He didn’t even realise he was doing it until the words on the screen started blurring and he had to wipe the water from his eyes. He kept reading. He skimmed down the page for a while and then stopped, reading more comments, more personal stories. So many people admitting to feeling the same, or feeling something different that hurt as much. Some comments were short, just a sentence or two. Others will the whole screen. Stiles didn’t read them all. There wasn’t enough time in the world to read them all. 

So many voices that had been silent, people who’d been trying to keep hidden, not wanting to show that they were hurting. So many people deciding it was OK to let people know that they suffered. 

Stiles cried. It felt like forever since he’d cried. But now the dam had burst and the tears came. He scanned on down the line of comments, skimming past a great many but pausing again to read them, to prove to himself that the early comments weren’t just a fluke. 

When he skimmed his way down to the bottom of the list, he took a moment. Derek had been right to tell him to read the comments and he’d also told him to read the rest of the blog. He wasn’t sure he could take it though. He was aware how much of a mess he was right now. 

But he went ahead, opening up posts at random from the archive. They were nothing like the one he’d just read. They were strange and silly, talking about taxidermy animals, and giant metal chickens, and whether or not Jesus was a zombie. There were jokes about Star Wars and Doctor Who. Partway through a post about Halloween costumes and giving cats heroine, Stiles laughed. 

The noise surprised him. He almost looked around to see who had been the one laughing, but the sound had come from his own lips. It wasn’t a fake noise, forced out because it was expected. He actually laughed. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like. 

He was still reading when Derek returned. Stiles looked up at him. 

“Why do you have that post saved to your internet bookmarks?” Stiles asked. He suspected he knew the answer. 

“You’re not the only one who has bad days,” Derek said. He held something out to Stiles. It was a watch. Stiles took it, frowning as he looked at it, noticing the engraved text on the back. 

_All dark times pass. L_

“Laura gave me that,” Derek said. “She told me to wear it when I felt bad and remember that every second it ticks means I’m a second closer to feeling better.” 

Stiles smiled a little and offered the watch back. Derek shook his head. 

“Wear it,” Derek said. “When you need to.”

**Author's Note:**

> The blog mentioned in this story is a very real one, and the coming out post with all the comments can be found [here](http://thebloggess.com/2011/01/coming-out/). 
> 
> I started writing this when I was having a bad day and decided to finish it because everyone deserves to know they're not alone when they have these feelings. 
> 
> I'm tempted to make a little series of this. I have a couple of ideas for considerably sillier follow-ups for when Stiles is feeling better and becoming a serious fan of this blogger, and Derek is the only one who understands what's going on. Any follow-up stories will be a very different feel.


End file.
